Story,
by Myst The Dark Knight
Summary: A lil story thing, based on books by Terry Brooks, he's my inspiration, read his books they are real good! Read and Review!!!


The shade of Allanon did not answer Walker at once, but remained  
  
silent and unresponsive, hovering like a dark cloud over the roiling  
  
waters of the Hadeshorn, all size and blackness against the starlit  
  
sky. Steam sprayed from the lake surface in sharp geysers, as if the  
  
dead trapped below were seeking to catch anew the breath of life. The  
  
moon was down, hidden behind the peaks that cupped the valley, a wary  
  
passerby on its way towards morning. Where he knelt at the water's  
  
edge, solitary and motionless, silence cloaked the shattered  
  
landscape.  
  
Walker blinked away the droplets that clung to his eyelids. In the  
  
midst of ghosts that found blind release in the legendary Valley of  
  
Shale, he must remember to see clearly. It occurred to him that coming  
  
here was a mistake, that asking for help from the dead was foolish.  
  
What help they offered was forever couched in obscure references and  
  
double meanings, words that fostered confusion rather than  
  
understanding. Better to know nothing than to be misled by false  
  
interpretation. Yet whom else could he turn to besides the shade? If  
  
even a tiny glimmering of understanding could come from their meeting  
  
this night, he must not pass it by.  
  
Allanon stirred within his spectral trappings, cowled head inclining  
  
slightly towards the supplicant.  
  
-Ask what you would of me-  
  
Walker stared fixedly into the blackness of the cowl, into the void  
  
that opened through it. "I have been shown a way to return the Druids  
  
to the Four Lands, to rebuild the Council at Paranor, and to bring to  
  
pass all that Galaphile hoped to achieve in the rebirth of  
  
civilization so many years ago. A map of another land had disclosed  
  
magic born out of the Old World. The magic is the key. But the way to  
  
the magic is uncertain and marked with dangerous twists and turns. It  
  
requires a journey to an unknown land. It requires great risk of me  
  
and of those who will go with me. I would know more of what to  
  
expect."  
  
Wind brushed his face, hot and strangely dry, blown off the surface of  
  
the Hadeshorn in a sudden gust. It caught the robes of the shade and  
  
caused them to billow like smoke.  
  
-If you would know the future, you would try to change it. If you  
  
would try to change it, you would damage your soul. Do you ask me to  
  
allow this--  
  
"No. I ask you to better prepare me for the choices I will be asked to  
  
make."  
  
-You are a Druid. You cannot be better prepared than you already are-  
  
"Then give me a reason to think that what I do is right!"  
  
Walker heard the desperation in his voice and was displeased with it.  
  
The shade seemed equally so. The waters over which it hovered spat and  
  
hissed in sudden fury, boiling up like a hot kettle heated by fresh  
  
fuel. Walker felt the familiar uncertainty, the unease of speaking  
  
with the dead, of confronting one who even in life had been so much  
  
more capable than he, of one who had known no equal and experienced no  
  
defeat.  
  
-Take the map and follow it. Follow it as you would a thread unraveled  
  
from a cloak of darkness. Wind it about your finger and when you reach  
  
its end, weave it back together once more. You will know what to do-  
  
It was an unsatisfying response that told Walker nothing, and in a mix  
  
of disappointment and frustration he came to his feet.  
  
"What am I to do with the magic I seek, once it is found?" The  
  
Hadeshorn hissed anew, but he ignored it. His voice tightened. "Yours  
  
is the collective knowledge of all the Druids. You must know of the  
  
magic's potential, of its power. It can destroy everything regained if  
  
it is not used well.  
  
-Everything-  
  
"Then tell me how to prevent that from happening! Am I to take  
  
everything I find - all of it? What part am I to give to the races?  
  
What should be held back and what put to use? I can't see far enough  
  
into the future to comprehend the answers!"  
  
A booming cough shook the ground beneath his feet, and a growl rose  
  
from within the earth.  
  
-A shade has no right to tell the living what they need. Only the  
  
living can make that decision. You must make it for all, because that  
  
is what you are given to do. On your shoulders hangs the mantle of  
  
responsibility for those with lesser insight, courage, and vision.  
  
Druids are charged with no less, Walker. Be what you have been given  
  
to be-  
  
Walker shook his head in dismay. "I am not what you say - not smarter  
  
or braver or more insightful. I have never been that. I am simply the  
  
bearer of a blood trust bestowed on Brin Ohmsford long before I was  
  
born, a trust I carry not because I want to, but because I must and  
  
because by doing so I might one day see a time when there is no  
  
further need for Druids!"  
  
He leaned towards the dark shape, his voice building. "I am no better  
  
than those I seek to help. I am a poor answer to their difficult  
  
questions. What are you, then? Where is the vaunted Druid power that  
  
should give me the insights and understandings I lack? Where is that  
  
power, but buried in the pit from which you rise to taunt me! If I am  
  
to be the way, then show me something of the path!"  
  
Lightning crackled before him, streaking down into the Hadeshorn from  
  
the heavens. It was followed by a thunderclap of such fury that he  
  
could feel it reverberated in the air about him. He stepped back from  
  
the brilliance and the sound, shielding his face. In the aftermath,  
  
everything went completely black, and he was suddenly alone, stranded  
  
in an inky void.  
  
He could feel the shade of Allanon draw close to him then. He could  
  
heard the hiss of his anger.  
  
-You travel to secure a treasure, Dark Uncle. You journey to fulfill a  
  
dream. What you accomplish will cost you and those with you. For some,  
  
it will cost everything. Lives will be lost and dreams shattered. None  
  
of those who return will be the same again. Ever-  
  
A slow hissing began to build from somewhere within the invisible  
  
black that shrouded them. It came from everywhere at once, slow and  
  
steady and terrifying.  
  
-Of the things you seek, you shall find them all. Of what you would  
  
know, only some will be revealed. Of what you retrieve, nothing will  
  
you take away. The future is fluid and ever changing, and so it will  
  
be be here. Give yourself over to it. If you would accomplish what you  
  
most desire, let go of what most weighs you down. Recognize when you  
  
have exceeded your reach. Give heed to what is meant to be and do not  
  
question or regret or try to subvert it-  
  
From a collage of images that formed in his mind, Walker caught a  
  
glimpse of what he was being told yet the particulars remained just  
  
out of reach. He shook his head in confusion.  
  
-One dream, Walker, of those you embrace, is all you are allowed.  
  
The rest, you must release-  
  
Allanon's voice was a dark, sad hiss of warning. Walker caught the  
  
inflection and the tone. "Which dream?" he whispered. "Which one?"  
  
But when the suffocating void fell away and the night sky reappeared  
  
overhead, the Hadeshorn lay before him as still and empty as dark  
  
glass clouded by smoke, and he was alone.  
  
[The Shannara online short story by Terry Brooks, Copyright(c) 2000 by  
  
Terry Brooks. The Shannara online short story by permission of  
  
Ballantine, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No  
  
part of this short story may be reproduced or reprinted without  
  
permission in writing from the publisher.]  
  
  
  
For more news on Terry Brooks visit:  
  
www.shannara.com  
  
www.terrybrooks.net 


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